Category Archives: All About Max

Hawthorne Park

May 1, 2013 Maurice Leave a comment

I don’t want to be maudlin here, but I’ve really missed Max. I’ve been poking around the blog lately, and realized we visited an awful lot of parks around Surrey. So over the last few days, I’ve been going for long walks in the parks that Max and I spent so much time in. On Sunday, Pam and I checked out Sunnyside Acres Urban Forest, a relatively flat park where we used to jog a lot.

Yesterday, while Pam worked, I visited Tynehead fish hatchery, a park that has lots of squirrels. They are bold little guys, crisscrossing the paths. I kinda chuckled, thinking Max would of been chasing them into the trees in a hurry!

And today I went for a walk around Hawthorne park, in North Surrey. Max used to really love this park. It has big ponds full of ducks, and he’d give them a good chase! He’d go charging down to the water, and slam on the brakes just before the water, trying not to get his feet wet. Funny guy…

Well today I saw a duck I’ve never seen before! It’s apparently called a Muscovy duck, and it’s a strange looking bird. It’s not native to Canada, so I have no idea how or why it’s here. I’ve put in a short movie here, so you can see how it moves – almost like a turkey, really, it’s head bobbling back and forth.

Hope you all are well and enjoying spring in your neck of the woods.

All About Max

April showers

April 19, 2013 Maurice Leave a comment

We’ve had some crazy weather lately. Typical for Vancouver mind you – lots of sunshine, and lots of rain. We’ve been cutting the grass weekly since February mind you, so the spring has been pretty mild. Our tulips have sprung up and have given us a pretty good show. It’s funny, I dug up all the tulips last year, and mixed all the colors together. Then I randomly grabbed bulbs and replanted them. And it didn’t work out too well! Somehow, all the orange ones got back together!

I’m a little surprised with the Akebono cherry tree we planted a couple years ago. It was pretty showy last year, with lots of pink blossoms. But this year, it just seems to be going straight to green leaves, skipping the blossom stage all together. I guess I need to give it better fertilizer.

We had planted about fifty daffodils, but only about a dozen came up. I’m thinking the squirrels must have had a feed on them. It’s a mystery to me, that’s for sure. Our garden should be chock FULL of daffodils – we have purchased well over two hundred bulbs since we’ve moved in here, and yet only a dozen bloomed. I better call Sherlock Holmes!

Here’s a picture of Max, relaxing on the rug in the family room. He’s getting old, kinda wobbly on his feet. He’s had more bad days than good lately. He’s very unsteady on his feet, and can barely walk up and down the stairs. Mike calls him a cat – always asleep! Once a month or so he’ll toss a ball, but when we throw it to him again, he sits down. A long walk for him is three houses down the block!

Hope everyone is doing great…

All About Max

Goofy dog

March 5, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

Here is a video of Lemon the dog. She’s a rescue dog, found abandoned on the side of the road. It’s an hysterical look at a dog’s life… the camera is one of the little GoPro jobs that alot of people strap to their bike, or helmets. The guy was looking after this dog for a friend, so he decides he’ll run a video to show his buddy that he took her for a walk. And it evolved from that!

Too funny. Love the bit where she’s looking at the deli counter!

All About Max

Fun movies

November 13, 2011 Maurice 3 Comments

Ok today I saw a couple of movies that I thought were pretty amazing. I’m not big on sending these things around, but I just really enjoyed them both.

WHALE HARRASMENT?

This first is really quite remarkable. In fact after the incident the Coast Guard released a statement that said if you come with 100 yards of any whale, you can be charged with harassment! haha

DOG PUTS HIMSELF TO SLEEP:

This second one is just cute. I know it will make Pam go Awwwww! He seems to have this down to a fine art!

All About Max, Grand Cayman

Spring in Vancouver

April 6, 2011 Maurice 1 Comment

This time of year is so lovely in our neck of the woods. The cherry trees are blooming, the daffodils are everywhere, the tulips are getting ready to bloom… it’s just a great time of year. We’ve been planting some new bulbs, and weeding out the winter sludge. The grape hyacinths have really come along, and they fill the border all along our garden with a profusion of purple!

Max and I took Pam to her appointment and we went for a short walk through Green Timbers Park. It’s about $4.50 to park at the hospital, so that’s why we head over to a park for a short walk while she gets radiated. Today, I managed to get him to sit still and I snapped a few pictures of him sitting among the daffodils. Nice picture I think.

I’ve included a short movie taken the other day at the Serpentine dog off leash park. A lot of the grey Hydro boxes have been painted with a mural on them, with scenes of flowers, woods, and trees. I think they are terrific really. So lo and behold, they’ve painted the garbage bin outside the dog park! We both thought it was cute enough to take a movie of it so you can see it in the full 360 degrees.

All About Max

Max and the Vet

March 16, 2011 Pam Leave a comment

Yesterday we took Max to the vet as he was limping and lifting his front right leg and not wanting to weight bear. It was difficult to watch him like that. We took him to Scottsdale Veterinary Hospital where his vet Dr Lewellyn looked at him. He advised we get an Xray to make sure he had not Fractured anything, and also a blood panel as he was also running a temperature. His temp was 40.5 which is high. His resps were high too. He was off his food yesterday.

Xrays did not show any fractures, but we could all see how swollen he was around the “wrist area” of the leg on a dog, he was very tender and would not let the vet touch it, so we had to muzzle him as he was giving a warning , but good boy, didn’t bite. He was in pretty bad pain though, so I’m glad we did take him in to get assessed. It cost us 510 bucks, which was painful to part with, but he’s our boy and so we did it.

For that we got:

The bill is as follows:

1 geriatric panel (blood) 119.90

1 blood collection and prep 23.85

1 office visit 59.00

1 Nail trim w exam 13.21

1 Xray – 2 views 141.67

.70 Metacam injection 13.04

1 Metacam Oral suspension 51.76

14 tramadol 100 mgm capsule 33.76

=====

456.76

HST 54.74

Total this invoice ======

510.93

Today we had to take Max back to get his temp checked. It had gone down to 39.2 but because his White blood count and other lab values were high, the vet advised he be on antibiotics. I asked her if they had any “donated” antibiotics that they could give us, so we would not have to incur more expense and they did, so we are grateful for that.no charge today.

Today he’s at least weight bearing on that foot, limping but will walk. Yesterday he wouldn’t, and so there is some improvement. I put ice packs on his leg yesterday x 2 and he tolerated them because he was so zonked from the tramadol.. 🙂 today he’s more perky so it’s a challenge. But.. I will perservere, as he needs it to help reduce the swelling. We have been bringing his food down to the family room because we don’t want him going up and down the stairs ++ to irritate the joint. Things are looking up. He’s still in pain, but not so terribly like he was. 🙂

…Pam…

All About Max, Surrey Parks

Bear stranded!

March 15, 2011 Maurice 3 Comments

We were out taking Max for a walk – in Bear Creek Park too – when we came across a terrible sight. We were walking along the salmon stream, which was quite high from the spring run off. Max suddenly barked, and ran back and forth across an open area by the stream.

We thought he must be chasing a squirrel, but no, he’d actually cornered a bear! I think he must have been fishing for salmon, but the river was moving so fast, he seemed paralyzed with fear!